William Wayne Justice, RIP

U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice was both loved and loathed by many people in Texas. But there are few people who can claim to have had the impact on Texans lives as did the federal jurist.

Here’s the AP obituary:

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice, whose rulings led to sweeping prison reforms and widespread desegregation of public schools in Texas, has died. He was 89.

A statement posted Wednesday on the Web site of St. David’s Episcopal Church in Austin said Justice died Tuesday. It gave no details.

A memorial service for Justice was scheduled for Monday at the church. Messages left early Wednesday with the church by The Associated Press were not immediately returned.

Justice was born in Athens, Texas, on Feb. 25, 1920. He was 7 when his trial attorney father put the child’s name on the law firm’s shingle.

Justice, in a 1985 interview with AP, said: “I love the law. I’ve been with the law all of my life. I was born and bred with the law.”

In 1942, he graduated from the University of Texas School of Law, which later became home to the William Wayne Justice Center for Public Interest Law. He served in the U.S. Army from 1942 to 1946.

Justice practiced law in Athens until 1961, when he was appointed by President John F. Kennedy to be U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Texas. Seven years later, President Lyndon B. Johnson appointed Justice to the federal bench in Tyler.

Justice served as chief judge of the district for a decade, starting in 1980. He assumed senior status on June 30, 1998.

In the AP interview, he said he would like to be remembered as a “professional,” a judge who listened to the facts, divined the truth and then properly applied the law.

U.S. Magistrate Judith Guthrie of Tyler, a longtime friend, told the Tyler Morning Telegraph that Justice was “a very courageous judge and a great man.”

His whole life as a judge was devoted to doing what the law required, according to Guthrie.